How Quaternary climatic and geological disturbances influenced the composition of Neotropical forests is hotly debated. Rain fall and temperature changes during and/or immediately after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) are thought to have strongly affected the geographical distribution and local abundance of tree species. The paucity of the fossil records in Neotropical forests prevents a direct reconstruction of such processes. To describe community-level historical trends in forest composition, we turned therefore to inferential methods based on the reconstruction of past demographic changes...

Recent studies have applied dimensionality reduction methods to understand how the multi-dimensional structure of neural population activity gives rise to brain function. It is unclear, however, how the results obtained from dimensionality reduction generalize to recordings with larger numbers of neurons and trials or how these results relate to the underlying network structure. We address these questions by applying factor analysis to recordings in the visual cortex of non-human primates and to spiking network models that self-generate irregular activity through a balance of excitation and inhibition...

In proliferating epithelia of mammalian skin, cells of irregular polygon-like shapes pack into complex, nearly flat two-dimensional structures that are pliable to deformations. In this work, we employ various sensitive correlation functions to quantitatively characterize structural features of evolving packings of epithelial cells across length scales in mouse skin. We find that the pair statistics in direct space (correlation function) and Fourier space (structure factor) of the cell centroids in the early stages of embryonic development show structural directional dependence (statistical anisotropy), which is a reflection of the fact that cells are stretched, which promotes uniaxial growth along the epithelial plane...

The regulation of the late viral gene expression in betaherpesviruses is largely undefined. We have previously shown that the murine cytomegalovirus proteins pM79 and pM92 are required for late gene transcription. Here, we provide insight into the mechanism of pM79 and pM92 activity by determining their interaction partners during infection. Co-immunoprecipitation-coupled mass spectrometry studies demonstrate that pM79 and pM92 interact with an array of cellular and viral proteins involved in transcription...

INTRODUCTION: High rates of cesarean birth are a significant health care quality issue, and birth centers have shown potential to reduce rates of cesarean birth. Measuring this potential is complicated by lack of randomized trials and limited observational comparisons. Cesarean rates vary by provider type, setting, and clinical and nonclinical characteristics of women, but our understanding of these dynamics is incomplete. METHODS: We sought to isolate labor setting from other risk factors in order to assess the effect of birth centers on the odds of cesarean birth...

"Warburg effect", the enhanced glycolysis or aerobic glycolysis, confers cancer cells the ability to survive and proliferate even under stressed conditions. In this study, we explored the role of epidermal growth factor (EGF) in orchestrating Warburg effect, the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process, and the acquisition of cancer stem-like cell properties in human oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cells. Our results showed that EGF induces EMT process in OSCC cells, which correlates with the acquisition of cancer stem-like properties, including the enrichment of CD44+/CD24- population of cancer cells and an increased expression of CSC-related genes, aldehyde dehydrogenase-1 (ALDH1) and Bmi-1...

Covalent lipid modification of proteins is essential to their cellular localizations and functions. Engineered lipid motif coupled with bio-orthogonal chemistry has been utilized to identify myristoylated or palmitoylated proteins in cells. However, whether modified proteins have similar properties as endogenous ones has not been well investigated mainly due to lack of methods to generate and analyze purified proteins. We have developed a method that utilizes metabolic interference and mass spectrometry to produce and analyze modified, myristoylated small GTPase ADP-ribosylation factor 1 (Arf1)...

Motivation and learning are inter-related. It is well known that motivating learners is clearly a complex endeavor, which can be influenced by the educational program and the learning environment. Limited research has been conducted to examine students' motivation as a method to assess the effectiveness of dissection in medical education. This study aimed to assess and analyze students' motivation following their dissection experience. A 29-item survey was developed based on the Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction model of motivation...

Three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) models are commonly used to analyze the mechanical behavior of the bone under different conditions (i.e. before and after arthroplasty). They can provide detailed information but they are numerically expensive and this limits their use in cases where large or numerous simulations are required. On the other hand, 2D models show less computational cost but the precision of results depends on the approach used for the simplification. Two main questions arise: are the 3D results adequately represented in a 2D section of the model? Which approach should be used to build a 2D model that provides reliable results compared to the 3D model? In this paper, we first evaluate if the plane used for generating the 2D models of bone-implant systems adequately represents the results of the full 3D model...

In this era of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), the quest for understanding the genetic architecture of complex diseases is rapidly increasing more than ever before. The development of high throughput genotyping and next generation sequencing technologies enables genetic epidemiological analysis of large scale data. These advances have led to the identification of a number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) responsible for disease susceptibility. The interactions between SNPs associated with complex diseases are increasingly being explored in the current literature...

OBJECTIVE: We propose a remote, non-invasive approach to develop Pulmonary Function Testing (PFT) using a depth sensor. METHOD: After generating a point cloud from scene depth values, we construct a 3D model of the subject's chest. Then, by estimating the chest volume variation throughout a sequence, we generate volume-time and flow-time data for two prevalent spirometry tests: Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) and Slow Vital Capacity (SVC). Tidal volume and main effort sections of volume-time data are analysed and calibrated separately to remove the effects of a subject's torso motion...

Mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS) are signaling molecules, which drive inflammatory cytokine production and T cell activation. In addition, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and autoimmune diseases all share a common feature of increased mtROS level. Both mtROS and ATP are produced as a result of electron transport chain activity, but it remains enigmatic whether mtROS could be generated independently from ATP synthesis. A recent study shed light on this important question and found that, during endothelial cell (EC) activation, mtROS could be upregulated in a proton leak-coupled, but ATP synthesis-uncoupled manner...

A model fish with man-made swim bladder achieves fast vertical motions based on density adjustments in a pressure-responsive way. When exposed to a magnetic field, a mini-generator is achieved by harvesting energy from the environment, working with pressure differences in the blood pressure range and at the frequency of a beating heart.

Rapid maxillary expansion (RME) is the technique of increasing the transverse dimension of the upper jaw using lateral forces applied by palatal expander. Usually, this palatal appliance is anchored on posterior teeth. The purposes of this computer simulation study were to analyze the stress and strain distribution generated in the maxilla, mainly in midpalatal suture (MPS), during RME by tooth-borne and bone-borne expanders and to study the correlation between mechanical strain and Wolff's Law. The analysis was performed with finite element models developed based on Cone Beam computed tomography (CT)...

A realistic mock circulatory system (MCS) could be a valuable in vitro testbed to study human circulatory hemodynamics. The objective of this study was to design a MCS replicating the pulmonary arterial circulation, incorporating an anatomically representative arterial model suitable for testing clinically relevant scenarios. A second objective of the study was to ensure the system's compatibility with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for additional measurements. A latex pulmonary arterial model with two generations of bifurcations was manufactured starting from a 3D-printed mold reconstructed from patient data...

Grapiprant is the novel selective EP4 receptor inhibitor recently issued on the veterinary market for dogs affected by osteoarthritis. The aim of this study was twofold: to evaluate the pharmacokinetics and the pharmacodynamics of grapiprant in the induced inflammatory pain model in the rabbit after a single IV injection of 2 mg/kg; to compare the thermal antinociception effect after 2 mg/kg IV grapiprant, with that generated by 0.5 mg/kg meloxicam SC injected. Rabbits (n = 12) were randomly assigned to two crossover studies (single-dose, two-period crossover)...

In cancer cells, the reversible nature of the stemness status in terms of chemoresistance has been poorly characterized. In this study, we have simulated on cycle of environmental conditions to study such reversibility by first generating floating tumorspheres (FTs) from lung and breast cancer cells by culturing them in serum-free media without the addition of any external mitogenic stimulation, and subsequently (after two weeks) re-incubating them back in serum-containing media to simulate routine culture conditions (RCCs)...

Objective: to propose a family care model for patients with chronic kidney disease in peritoneal dialysis based on evidence indicated by family members. Method: this was a qualitative descriptive study that used the Convergent Care Research method. It was conducted at a state hospital in Rio de Janeiro, including techniques for recording individual interviews and consisted of a group of 19 study participants. Data were analyzed according to the stages proposed by the method, generating a category that used a cultural question as the basis for patient care resulting in a proposal for home-based family care...